You know how everyone has those foods that bring them back to their childhood? Mine are my mom’s home made mac and cheese (nothing like it!) and bacon wrapped scallops. I have memories from when I was little of my parents making them after my brother and I had gone to sleep. I would sneak out of my bed and see them eating them while watching TV and tip toe my way over and give them a coy little smile until they handed one over.

The memories extend into my adult life, and while a lot has changed one thing that has stayed the same is we all love bacon wrapped scallops. Scallops are not the most budget friendly choice, so while I would love to eat them everyday, they are special occasion items. So you can imagine my pleasure when a coworker brought in what looked to be bacon wrapped scallops for everyone to snack on. I took a bite and there was an uncharacteristic, yet amazing, crunch. What a weird scallop. Wait – this isn’t a scallop. It’s a water chestnut.

What? Why hadn’t I heard of this? It had the same satisfying flavour I loved, and for $1.50/can instead of $15 a bag. WIN.

Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts

Ingredients

1 can whole water chestnuts

1/2 – 1 whole package of bacon, sliced into halves (depending on how many water chestnuts pieces you end up with)

Method

Preheat oven to 350 – 400 degrees – this recipe is not high maintenance. Line a rimmed cookie sheet with foil for easy clean up. If your water chestnuts are large, simply slice them in half. Wrap in bacon slice half and secure with moistened toothpick. Arrange on cookie sheet and put in the oven until they start to brown (about 10 minutes, although I didn’t really time them as much as just kept an eye on them) and flip over. Cook until bacon is as crispy as you like it, keeping an eye on them to make sure they don’t get toooo crispy. No one wants that. Unless you do, that’s cool too.

Let them sit for a few minutes, they’re darn hot. Eat up and enjoy!

PS I did some research after the fact and found several recipes that suggest marinating the water chestnuts in soy sauce and rolling in brown sugar before you roll them in bacon. Damn. I’m doing that next.

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bits of the past

bits of the past

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